Author Archives: Mike Brown

There’s an obvious pattern in presentations on Steve Jobs-related topics since his death: they typically sound like either a book report or a eulogy. One 2012 Jobs-related creativity panel I sat through even went so far as to refer to Jobs in the present tense and Apple in the past tense.

Talking with an entrepreneur recently about innovative approaches to community-improvement, he discussed a market gap he perceives isn’t being adequately addressed by current community organization resources in his city. It’s not that no community organization is trying to be innovative and address the issue. To the contrary, there are many community and private organizations, large and small...

When it comes to determining the best strategic thinkers to invite into strategic planning efforts, the easy and frequent decision is rattling off a list of people based on titles and positions in an organization or team. There's a lot more to being a strong strategic thinker, however, than one’s organizational position.

Here’s my rationale for getting all the rules down upfront. Obviously somebody spent a lot of time coming up with them and is very invested in others following the rules. When you blatantly challenge rules or break them outright, you tend to wind up in a back-and-forth confrontation and discussion about why the rules are or aren’t right. When you reach that conversation, you typically face a fairly low probability of changing the mind of the authority figure protecting the rules.

One of my most popular blog posts ever here on Innovation Excellence was on extreme creativity lessons from the TLC reality TV series “Cake Boss” starring Buddy Valastro and his cake baking family at Carlo’s Bakery. New “Cake Boss” episodes started last week on TLC, so it is time to share five more extreme creativity lessons...

If only people weren’t beholden to a planned obsolescence mind-set. Only if diverse resources collaborate to be collectively smarter, wiser, and richer. In the shortest 2011 TEDxKC talk of the evening, TED fellow and Polish-born fusion physicist Marcin Jakubowski shared an overview of his work just an hour north of Kansas City directing Open Source Ecology in developing the Global ...

The Wall Street Journal ran a profile this past weekend on Soleio Cuervo, a product designer and member of the team that created the Facebook “Like” button. Since I always appreciate a profile that looks behind the scenes at how someone who creates does the creating, I recommend you check the article out if you haven’t seen it already. In ...

We were on a call recently with an extended creative team generating ideas for client videos. During breaks, I found myself jotting down examples of important creative thinking skills the team was exhibiting. These seven creative thinking skills demonstrated during the call are ones which benefit both those who display them and those working with them too: 1. Suspending advocacy ...

Bob Thacker, Chief Cubist at Cubit Consulting, closed out the Business Marketing Association conference with a presentation on “Unleash Your Creativity.” Thacker’s creativity comments were a fitting and fun (and by fun, I mean both “strategic” and “enjoyable”) close for the BMA Unleash conference. Here are three themes on creative possibilities I took away to apply to my own creative ...